That's actually not recommended. It's going to rot in there and produce a horrid smell. >.< It's better to use pure ammonia. If the Betta is the only specimen in the tank, it's better and recommended to do a Fish-In cycle. A healthy Betta can deal with the ammonia levels. Just do the needed water changes and he'll be fine.

Thanks for getting back to me Lebron - I have not even purchased the Betta in anticipation of the cycle taking a while.

I found this information in a sticky on this forum section:

-The "Fishless Cycle" Using Shrimp

This method is similar to the fish food method but instead of fish food, we supply ammonia using raw shrimp from the seafood section of the grocery store. One medium sized shrimp for every 20 or 30 gallons of water will decay and provide a steady flow of ammonia into the tank. The benefit to using shrimp vs. fish food is that you can put the shrimp into some sort of mesh bag (filter media bags or pantyhose work great) so that the waste can be removed easily at the end of the cycle. Using shrimp also provides a nice steady, even flow of ammonia, something that can be hard to accomplish using only fish food. The steps to the cycle itself are the same as described above. This is likely the easiest method of cycling a tank as all you have to do is add the shrimp, test the water parameters from time to time, remove the shrimp at the end of the cycle and do a water change and you're all set.

Is this really bad advice? I am sort of all set to take this approach - willing of course to try another but was hoping to start tonight.

Would love to hear some more opinions. Thanks for all your help thus far.

It is a bad idea... It will rot and not only create terrible threads, but it may bring fungus and unwanted bacteria into the tank. Pure ammonia is the best thing to use, or if you can get some of someones filter media from an established tank and add it to your filter. It will "instantly" cycle your aquarium.

It is a bad idea... It will rot and not only create terrible threads, but it may bring fungus and unwanted bacteria into the tank. Pure ammonia is the best thing to use, or if you can get some of someones filter media from an established tank and add it to your filter. It will "instantly" cycle your aquarium.

I have a cycled tank whose media I could borrow. What kind of ratio are we talking about? take 1/4 or so? Is that too little?